A blog maintained by the team working to hold
oil giant Chevron accountable for its human rights
and environmental abuses in Ecuador

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Monday, July 6, 2015

BP's latest settlement for its Gulf of Mexico spill, for the amount of $18.7 billion, further highlights the greed and racism of Chevron for refusing to settle claims over the far worse ecological damage caused by the company to the people of Ecuador's Amazon region.

With the latest settlement, BP estimates its total liability for the 2010 spill to be $54 billion. That's more than five times higher than Chevron's liability for systematically discharging billions of gallons of benzene-lade oil waste into the waterways of Ecuador's Amazon. The dumping happened from 1964 to 1992, when Chevron (operating as Texaco) abruptly pulled out of the country.

Could there be a more brazen illustration of racism and greed than Chevron's despicable refusal to accept responsibility for what it did in Ecuador?

Chevron CEO John Watson has claimed Ecuador's courts gouged the company when they delivered the verdict against the oil giant in 2011. The damages later were upheld in 2013 in a unanimous decision by Ecuador's Supreme Court. To avoid a U.S. jury, Chevron had insisted the trial be held in Ecuador and had accepted jurisdiction there.

While BP compensates its victims in the U.S., Chevron thus far has been able to obtain effective impunity for its crimes against the people of Ecuador. Cancer rates in the affected area have skyrocketed, costing numerous lives. Instead of cleaning up, the company attacks the very villagers it poisoned and sues the lawyers who have led the legal charge demanding adequate compensation.

Chevron's contamination in Ecuador is far more widespread than BP's in the Gulf. It has lasted longer, was planned deliberately, and has decimated indigenous groups. The hard truth is that environmental racism is alive and well in Chevron today and Ecuador is not the only example.

Another is how the company treats the Bay Area community of Richmond. That's where Chevron owns a polluting refinery where a fire recently forced thousands to seek medical attention. When the community stood up to Chevron and demanded changes, the company had the temerity to spend $3 million to fund its own candidates for the town council.

There was a tragic loss of life and a major environmental impact from the Gulf spill. But at least 1,400 people in Ecuador are estimated to have died from cancer and other oil-related diseases. The death toll will rise if there is no clean-up.

Chevron's racism toward the people of Ecuador was on clear display during the trial. Company lawyers proposed that Ecuador's courts adopt a clean-up standard 100 times more lax than that used in its home state of California. For more on how Chevron tried to corrupt the court process in Ecuador, see this sworn affidavit from lawyer Juan Pablo Saenz.

Of course, many of Chevron's victims in Ecuador are indigenous and live in an isolated part of a Third World country. Unlike BP's victims in the U.S., they do not have environmental laws like the Clean Water Act to protect them.

Let's review the facts.

In Ecuador, a major U.S. oil company has refused for almost 50 years to clean up an environmental catastrophe caused by intentional dumping over a period of decades. In the U.S., a British company that had a terrible accident put up $20 billion without as much as a trial and ultimately settled the entire matter for more than $50 billion.

When Chevron CEO Watson claims the Ecuador judgment is too high, what he is really saying is it is unfathomable to him that people in the forest could actually hold his company accountable.